By: Paul Caracciolo
The Quinnipiac women’s hockey team played in a top 10 matchup when it took on No. 10 Princeton in Hamden Friday evening. Quinnipiac recorded its third tie of the season. The Bobcats (6-1-3, 2-1-2) saw their offensive struggles continue after they scored only once on 31 shots.
“We started that first period and just came out flying and we had tremendous energy, we turned that into good scoring chances and we need to bury those, we need to take those chances more seriously,” Quinnipiac head coach Cassandra Turner said.
These aren’t new problems for Turner’s squad. Quinnipiac has only scored four times on its last 62 shots on net.
Meghan Turner was a big part of the fast start the Bobcats had. She scored with about six minutes left in the first period. She has been one of the few Bobcats of late to get the job done. Turner is tied for third on the team with four goals on the season and is riding a two-game goal streak. When asked what she’s been doing to score more she said.
“Really getting in front of the net,” said Turner. “Screening is one of my strengths. So being around there, being hungrier to get pucks in the net once they come off rebounds.”
The Bobcats had other chances in the game after that. Quinnipiac had five power plays in the game and did not capitalize on any of them. Afterwards, Cassandra Turner talked about how she will approaching the issue.
“We recently just changed our power plays up, so I thought there were some good things with our power play. Sometimes its takes a little bit of time to build chemistry when you make a few changes, and we still really like the changes we made, ” Turner said.
Chemistry isn’t only a problem with the power play unit, its also been a problem with the Bobcat’s second line. The line that features the talents of T.T Cianfarano, Melissa Samoskevich and Emma Woods was virtually shutdown by the Tigers.
“They’re still in a place where they’re figuring out how to play both with the puck and without the puck. Continuing to help them make plays together, when we do that, and their puck support is a little bit closer, they’re going to be pretty dominant and they’re still taking steps to get to that,” Turner said.
The switch appeared to be Nicole Connery for Melissa Samoskevich. The reason being the team is looking for more gritty goals in front of the net. Samoskevich has a very accurate shot, but Connery is more physical and has a better chance to win the battles down low.
The Bobcats get a second shot at the Tigers Saturday afternoon at 3pm at the Hobey Baker Rink in New Jersey.
